True Crime: Streets of LA Preview

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How about some multiplayer?

By Aaron Boulding

With the top notch production techniques, Hollywood voice talent and twisting plot, Activision's True Crime: Streets of LA could be a movie masquerading as a videogame or vice versa. Developed by Luxoflux, of Vigilante 8 fame, the biggest asset this title brings --next to its combination of fighting, shooting and driving-- is the dynamic storyline that players will be shaping themselves as they progress. The last time going to the movies was this interactive, we were all wearing funny red and blue 3D glasses. Take all the buzzwords you know about action movies like Lethal Weapon, Romeo Must Die and maybe even a little Quentin Tarantino, and you're on the way toward understanding what this game is trying to do. Hollywood enough for you yet? Get a load of the voice talent: Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Michael Madsen, Snoop Dogg, Michelle Rodriguez, and Ron Perlman, among others.

Those of who who already played True Crime on the consoles are probably saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's new for the PC version?" Let's talk about multiplayer, for one thing. Yep, True Crime gives you the opportunity to play against three other people over a LAN or the Internet. And you have no less than five different game types to choose from. Street Racing Mode sets you up Fast and the Furious-style, with several preset racing courses. You can customize where you want to put the waypoints, and toggle pedestrians, traffic, and weapons. Next is Dojo Master, which will set you up with hand-to hand combat, played either one-on-one, with teams, or three against one. Battle Master is essentially the same but incorporates weapons. Then there's The Beat, where you compete against four other officers to make the most "collars" in a set amount of time. You get those by responding to emergency dispatches, frisking people, and general crime-busting.

Although True Crime only has four-player multiplayer, it stands to reason that things could get pretty chaotic with a bunch of people running around the town. We'll have to wait until we see the final version before we can say for sure, though.

The PC version also get three new weapons: a rocket launcher, crossbow and baseball bat. The launchers and crossbows can also be held akimbo for twice the action, like Max Payne with his dual Ingrams. Character animations have also gotten a shot in the arm and look pretty nice across the board, especially when the kung fu starts flying. Last but not least are 30 more songs for the soundtrack--and this time it will include rock and techno, in addition to the truckload of West Coast hip-hop.

The PC version is set to be released this Spring.

For those of you who didn't play the game on the consoles, we've got a load of info for you. First, the story: Nick Kang was let go from the LAPD for being too violent in the course of his duties. As an operative for the fictional and mysterious Elite Operations Division he now fights crime as a hard-chargin' badass who sometimes works within the law. Your task as Kang is to take down the growing Russian and Chinese organized crime syndicates in Los Angeles whilst also trying to figure out who capped Kang's father. All of the driving and fighting you'll be doing across 240 square miles of Los Angeles that have been re-created for this game. It's held together by a storyline that branches off repeatedly as you make certain decisions and pass or fail certain objectives.

But to understand how the story works, we'll need to first explain how the game itself works. Much like Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, you're given a living city that goes about its routine business, yet will react to Kang's interference as he tries to complete more than one hundred story-based missions and the hundred randomly generated crimes that will occur. Both the story and the random crimes will require you to put all of your driving, shooting and combat skills to use in a variety of ways. Apprehending criminals, chasing down and eliminating enemies and racing through the city streets aren't even a drop in the bucket of what you'll be able to do using the combination driving/third person engine in True Crime.